Darfur rebels call on Arabs to protect minorities

CAIRO, March 21 (Reuters) – Rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region want an Arab summit this week to show support for minorities in Arab countries and help bring war criminals to justice, rebel leaders said on Monday.

“We are calling on the Arab leaders at the Arab summit in Algeria to pass a resolution to respect the rights of non-Arabs in Arab countries,” Khalil Ibrahim, a leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), told Reuters from the Eritrean capital Asmara.

Abdel Wahed Muhamed al-Nur, a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), another rebel group, said he wanted the Arab states to back the recommendations of a U.N.-appointed inquiry commission that suspected Darfur war criminals be put on trial at the International Criminal Court.

“We call on the Arab states to support the trial of the people the UN has said are perpetrators of war crimes,” he told Reuters from Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

Arab leaders meet in the Algerian capital Algiers on Tuesday.

Rebels of the JEM and the SLA took up arms in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of discrimination against non-Arabs, and said the government recruited fighters from largely Arab tribes to form militias to fight the rebellion.

The militias, known as Janjaweed, are accused of launching a campaign of killing, rape, looting and burning non-Arab villages.

Khartoum admits arming some militias to fight the rebels but denies any links to the Janjaweed.

Tens of thousands of Darfur villagers have been killed in the fighting and two million have fled their homes and sought safety in camps where thousands die every month from malnutrition and disease.